Floruit, floret, floreat!

Cheltonia's children cry... Time flees, 17 years, 19, a blink just, a second, a fate - and not a bad one at all actually. Possibly, maybe even likely just one out of an infinity, and there possibly, maybe even likely is an infinity of infinities. There for sure are strange harmonies, breathtaking beauty here in this ice cold world, in this wild, ever untamed experience of being here. Time flees, tempus fugit.

Late empire decadence revisited

There is a famous quote by Henry James about the meaning of the First World War, here its essence:

 "The plunge of civilization into this abyss of blood and darkness... is a thing that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be, with whatever abatement, gradually bettering".

I rather think that this mad, bloody circus of an era gives away the effects of Washington consensus and the full liberalization and deregulation of capital movements. The sobering effects of the world wars have gradually worn off, the central meaning of the resolution of them was not human rights and liberal democracy but making the world again safe for destructive, blind, ever corrupt, ever corrupting, ever corrosive capitalism. And so here we go again.

Appi, ma vajan armastust

Those furious affections of earlier times chime ever more faintly, that certainty of burning desire, whether fulfilled or not was the test of living once. Now, having burned out of that fierce fire I still feel, I still am convinced of love as being the measure of us. More protective love now for my children, less burning desire for other minds, other bodies. But still both there, love in its many forms, desire in its single purpose, I am still living, still desiring.

Pray not for Gutiérrez

Nor for Boudin torn to pieces.

Oh, pray for a stubborn warm good woman, my mother, dead at 94 years, happy to go with the Pietist rites, happy to finally let go, proportionally, traditionally. Much left unsaid, much left unsettled. But tones of voices, touches by the end, the loyalty of being there. For the love that was ever unearned that saved my life in those vicious evil storms. A reconciliation of sorts, far short of what there should have been, but a reconciliation, my ice cold heart at least partially melted. And the proportion of that dignified going, into death as into life. Not a cold going of it. A reconcialiation was achieved, a softness of touch, of heart.

Things fall apart

The 1930's are clearly back in fashion, an ever increasingly repeated theme on this blog of 20 years. I really think there should be a certain limit to all pragmatism and centrism. Like passionate convictions, incomprehensible terms for many people I'm sure both conviction and passion. There really are hard limits, no negotiations, come hell or high water. This is how history is made, standing fast or endlessly retreating. And that's why our pragmatic, technocratic "liberal" foundations are so weak. These positions are not passionately, irrationally held.